The cut-down version of Meet the Raspberry Pi, written by Eben Upton, our Executive Director, and Gareth Halfacree, is now available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book. It’s only £3.29.

This is the shorter, cut-down version of the book, which is to be followed shortly by a much longer book with more tutorials, more programming, and more physical computing (and longer versions of the existing chapters). This shorter version is ideal for beginners, and will talk you through setting up your Raspberry Pi from scratch, and get you to a position where you can start using your Raspberry Pi like a pro. If you are a more advanced user, you may prefer to wait for the full version of the book to come out – I know the publishers are scrambling to get everything finished, so it shouldn’t be long now.

Big thanks to Gareth and to Eben, and to everyone at Wiley for all their hard work.

Bought it and now I can’t get my grandson to eat his evening meal – he’s “absorbing” the ebook – his words. Reading over his shoulder, I can see this as the ideal introduction to Pi, rather than wading through all the fora and such. It reminds me of the BBC Micro and Commodore VIC-20 days.

Well done guys – a major step forward in the original objective. The 8-year old beside me has suddenly taken a shine to programming instead of just playing computer games.

I’ll read the comments shortly, but I am curious as to whether anyone has successfully downloaded the book “Meet the Raspberry Pi” to the Kindle App on an iPad? It downloaded to the Kindle program on my PC without a problem, but it keeps getting an error when I try to download it to the iPad.

I sent Amazon a complaint asking whether the Kindle book could be downloaded and read on the iPad and they sent me a form to fill out. I filled out the form and submitted. Maybe I’ll find some more information or at least get a refund. I really would like to be able to support this foundation by purchasing the book. If I cannot get it from Kindle, I’ll try the Apple store, but I prefer other sources.

Apologies for this, everyone – I’ll flag it with the publisher, see if we can’t get it sorted as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, if you’re desperate for your Raspberry Pi fix, the book is available in iBooks – just search for ‘Raspberry Pi’ and it will appear.

Great! Just got a copy via Amazon Germany for 3.60 €.
Are there also plans to translate this book into other languages?
Specifically, I would be interested in a German version for my older and younger family members :-)
If there are no plans yet, I would assume that there are many volunteers in the online crowd, including myself, who would like to help to translate into various languages. That said, I know nothing about the legal aspects of translating a book.

Lovely book – very readable, and there are some nice linux tips in there as well (and I now realise there are lots of linux commands I just type blindly without much context!). Just one bit of feedback – on the Kindle the screenshots of the Console (white text on black background) are quite difficult to read – I’d suggest either writing them out and formatting them as monospace or reversing the images to make them clearer. (If you need a volunteer I’d happily do this for you! – I format ebooks as part of my job).

I read the review of the latest raspberry book with interest this morning but… That was short lived.
The misguided drive by governments and business to protect us from information outside our countries continues to grow. Imagine my surprise when kindle informed me I can’t buy either version of the book as it’s not available in North America.
I’ve heard many arguments defending this ridiculous censorship but in my mind there is NO excuse that is valid.
Sorry for the dark nature of this article but after my dismal experience with kindle fire in Canada I am fed up with this situation.

I visited http://www.amazon.com and typed in “Meet the Raspberry Pi” into the search window. I quickly found the book and ordered it. I have downloaded it to two PC’s, but I have problems getting it into the Kindle App for iPad. I’m from California and I had absolutely no problem ordering the book.

I like it. As a computer-literate but Linux-averse newbie, this book could have saved me many hours and a fair bit of head scratching if I’d had it when my Pi was fresh out of the box. As noted by Pete Taylor the screenshots don’t work too well on Kindle, rendered as grey on grey, but apart from that it’s all good.

The book seems sensibly organised and is written in a clear, straightforward style. Above all, it’s a proper book created and written by knowledgeable enthusiasts – those accustomed to the mish-mash of recycled data sheets and web pages that sometimes passes for publishing in the hobbyist world will know what I mean.

I look forward to the full version, in hard copy. Much as I love my Kindle for reading, I prefer paper for technical and reference books: they are easier to flip through and, for me, paper bookmarks work better than electronic ones. In the meantime, though, this eBook version is a good three pounds’ worth.

Not of this version, I’m afraid – but the entire contents will be included in the more expansive Raspberry Pi User Guide, which is due out as quickly as the publisher can print it. That will be available in both printed and electronic formats.

I understand this is the beginners version of the book and a more detailed version is on its way. Will the updated version replace our current digital version or will it be a completely different release/book?

Hi,
I’m so far in the wilds, my internet download of Raspian – wheezy – is projected at about 2 hours. Is there any way I can purchase a disk with this software?

ps Don’t mean to be offensive but can Liz turn backwards – she’s distracting my typing – its gone from bad to useless!!
Just in case I forgot – I think Raspberry Pi is magic – I’m not into programmng but I love building hardware – am I excluded from your club?
All the best – I follow most of the streams,
Hugh

Finally getting round to buying a RPi – might have a bit of a wait for the delivery. Just checked for cases, now looking at this book. Amazon UK are charging 250% of the RS price for the board – what a cheek!

I think I’ll go for an epub format, as there is an addon for Firefox that will read those

most expensive thing I can find on amazon.co.uk that is raspberry pi related is a £68 raspberry pi model b that isn’t being sold by amazon or the foundation.
[edited: correcting math & actually i lie i just found some ****** trying to sell a model b for £199 :) ]

I downloaded the book from Amazon, and have been reading it on my Kindle Fire. For a computer book, this one is surprisingly well written. The explanations are well-considered, and they provide plenty of detail. For example, the discussion on Video explains how to change from NTSC to PAL, tells me that NTSC is the default, and explains the difference. Good job, and a kudos to each of the authors. (No, I don’t speak Greek).